"indenting" poems
My pain is not a poem,
my poetry isn't poetic.
It's cryptic and a message,
cutting up and breaking
branches. Comprehensive;
my poems are suicidal, files of
medications and prescriptions
are seemingly all my mind
can write. Jumping to conclusions
and indenting my addictions,
inflicting this confliction, convictions
I don't mention. Those rhymes that
I have wrote; it was the drowning as I broke,
a broken draft of notes, that sing:
"you'll never learn to float,"
Acid, or is it water?
I'm hoping for the latter,
well I guess it never mattered,
years doubled and I'm sadder.
When does it get better?
When do I get better?
I guess it never will, and I'm
home but I'm not here,
I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck,
and all my heart
can pump is tears-
May 3, 2018
May 3, 2018 at 8:06 PM UTC
The second i snap out of my dream and back into the realism of it all, im hoping second by second that your actually here beside me and that i wasn't just dreaming out loud. My body and mind, coming back to the surface of it all, my breathing pick's up and my sense of feel and smell has resurfaced. I smell the sweet and light smell of your hair but im not sure if it's just the after math of my dream. starring at this wall, im afraid to roll over, because if i roll over and your not there i don't know how well i'm going to do or if ill even continue with my day. If I can continue this dream of you, i'll sleep forever, i'll never open my eyes again. I brace myself, cause it's time for me to roll over. Tightening my muscles, stretching my skin, tired bone's cracking, hair moving in all direction's, clothes moving out of place and indenting the bed. I squeeze my eye's tight, causing my pupil's to shrink, hoping that when i open these door's and let my pupil's increase to normal size, there your perfectly shaped body will be. I imagine it before i dare to reveal the truth. The blanket's fall into place where your curves indent, your hair in a wave like the pattern flowing wave's in the ocean, your arm being tucked just under your chin where it meet's your other arm and after a few seconds i can't bare the taunt my imagination is dangling in my face, so i open my eyes and there you are. Exactly how I imagined it. I take a moment for all this to register, as if i had just won the lottery. In that moment i find myself wrapping my arm's around you and your finger's sliding up my arm and into my hand to lock with mine. This is truely the meaning of "Goodmorning", so goodmorning, babe.
Jun 9, 2011
Jun 9, 2011 at 7:17 AM UTC
Words,
Like lightning, ripping its way through my heart, jolting me violently as I struggle to compose myself.
"They're just words."
The trembling earth parts to reveal a smile, weak, fake, hiding the needle like pain the words you say cause me.
"No, it doesn't bother me."
I bite my lip, white bricks indenting into a plush garden, as the ocean threatens to overtake the beach with only my eyelashes to hold back the waves.
"Yeah, it is funny isn't it?"
You laugh about my imperfections, and I laugh with you,
hard, forced, hot air exhaling from my lungs as I blink and my mind scrambles to find ways to better myself.
"Totally, stretch marks are so gross."
Pink vines of ivy run their way across my body, and I wonder if I can find a way to hide the lighting on my thighs, my *******
"But you're still pretty though."
Your words force the air out of my lungs and I nod reassuringly, because I'm still pretty, despite all the things you say are wrong with me. Things that make me who I am, but to you are marks against me as a person, but its ok, because I'm still pretty.
They're just words, but they can make you choke, and cry, and want to change yourself, just so someone can tell you that you're still pretty.
But pretty is just a word, and I'm so much more than your definition of what makes me worthy in your eyes.
Words.
Lava building up inside me and finally getting the courage to force its way to the top, to pour out of me and cover my body in molten rock, encasing me in protection in the form of letters and confidence.
"I know."
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 2:15 PM UTC
Have you ever noticed
that tail lights reflect
off tire-worn roads
when sun and all
have gone asleep?
A pair of red glow
just seems to float
through space
like a reverse halo
behind and below vehicle
on its 2am way elsewhere.
And how about the fact
that windshield wiper and turn signal
never truly-precisely-
exactly-rhythmically sync?
One clicks and blinks,
the other dryly whaps,
on that first swipe,
of course,
just when light mist
begins to stick
and the exit approaches
at a slick
sixty-five-miles-an-hour.
Turn down the volume now,
it's time to pay attention.
Candle wax doesn't always
melt directly inward.
Sometimes it does dome
perfectly,
which makes it
all the more fun
to push further.
Other times it just bows out,
as if to say,
"There'll be no addition
to the amount of light
I'll be giving you tonight.
You'll just have to bend me in
and pray for a split-less base,"
as hours, seeming like minutes,
in minutiae,
are spent burning our tobacco
and circling our teacups
and laughing effortlessly,
indenting pillows and rugs
and us keeping so, so quiet
as not to awaken ourselves.
Waxing is always
a chance worth risking
because, worst case,
we can inflame another dancer
while we chat
and hope that,
just this once,
God help us,
we realize
our stars align.
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 3:36 AM UTC
Tapping scabs smolder my face; predictable
And prophecy, like owning a, “dead man’s hand,”
Parallel the pistol at your back.
It all began when the pen’s been dropped,
Somewhere untouchable; beyond claw,
Sooner the excuse as I’d long forgotten, “run.”
When drink’s not enough and, “escape’s,” the
Only to embrace oblivion, so it is and
So wrought, a solid right-hook.
Executed in pandemonium and
Scrambled eggs upstairs,
I scratch a different sort of stubborn
Come a morning in between graffiti,
An anxiety born an impatience for an already evening
And, “newborn,” as I look for the
Baby’s skin beneath battered lash;
But I’d killed that boy long ago.
It’s when I find the green in between cracks,
Concrete pervades and poisoned memories of mother,
Return; they’re scratched upon the stone,
Carved under cheek, knotted in lumber and heart.
I’ve hammered the point upon slab
And before and before and after;
Indenting the first letter to my name, remember me,
Whilst continuing to procure this numb
Nearing necropolis.
The fight’s last night, but the blister’s
Every day, every hour and every minute;
Eternity, as I trace my cheek with two fingers,
Once with a ring, and the other
A broken knuckle, swollen in a
Twenty-second attempt to never let go;
One more second or so and so,
Ticking, “21,” I fold, letting ropes conjure false hope
And only after the hands have grown frigid.
So much the longer after my heart had
And so much the better.
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 9:52 PM UTC
You drive in
circles and circles and circles
in a stuffy car
constantly searching
for the best possible space.
Stopped and waiting
for person after person
who clearly find it acceptable
to walk in
the
middle
of
the
street
Gritted teeth
Fingers gripped, indenting the
cushioning of your steering wheel
You imagine your
parking angels laughing
at your ridiculous prayers
playing harps to
accompany your misery.
You felt as if you haven't
taken a breath in
quite some time
as your sweat-drenched collar
seems to be tightening.
Frustration is digging ulcers
as if you're ready to just
crash your car right
into the front of the store
and,
Finally
you just settle
for the space in the way back.
Nothing to exactly brag about
at your next dinner party.
Settling is a part of life you suppose.
The door slams and you lock it.
A few paces in
and
well,
you find yourself
surprisingly
enjoying
the long walk,
this scenic route.
You remember how nice it is
to actually be outdoors
and to see some clouds
and birds and empty
noiseless air.
You laugh a little to yourself
You slow your steps and breathe.
A car honks at you for standing
in the middle of the street.
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 12:00 AM UTC
What's with the roller-coaster
of anticipation and dehydration
that goes with these daily adventures?
Can't stop yelling, reliving the fact that normally
I would be sitting at home
listening to lorde and feeling sorry for myself
but instead I'm hazing in a land of
1/4 adults, all the rest
sugared-up, sunscreen-sweating, scream-yelling and cussing middleschoolers
with unlimited access to rides that makes our t-shirts see-through
and our hearts hide in our throats
from all the loud, loud music and words
that goes along with having packaged fun.
So while I'm sitting in a cracked leather seat
the metal bar indenting on my skin
and my glasses stuffed in my bra,
I remember to jus' remember
that middle school is one hell of a ride.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 8:18 PM UTC
She stands among the grey scape with
So many muted colours inside her.
But today is a day of monochrome miasmas-
Of grey gulls that skim the pewter river
With wings that know such measures.
The greyness leeches her to the technicolour
World she knew long ago
Somewhere down the river.
A cauldron of rage wages above her
Filled with the bursts of brigands of
Grey restless beauty.
There's a rainbow now!
As it archly
Shows its palette she sees the separation
Appear ever nearer...
Above the rainbow is cobalt
Beneath it a merely flat grey.
Underneath her umbrella she enjoys
The puttered thwacks of soft water indenting
Thin fabric with a firework crack.
Suddenly she's back
Her shoes are black and her eyes are grey.
She wishes everyone was a million miles away.
She wishes everyone could stay.
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 3:29 PM UTC
A teardrop splatters
on glass rubbed with red
splashed with blood
the remnants of
a life long gone.
Able to stare
able to glance
able to brush the surface
to watch breath fog the glass
but not welcome.
They turn their heads
but they do not see
sights they deem unworthy
you see them laugh
longing to laugh with them.
Claws rake that border
indenting that smooth sheet
a terrible screeching
an onomatopoia
of sorrow devoid of life.
You watch them smile
you watch them kiss
you watch them without you
how happy they seem.
What must be done. You painstakingly
turn away.
Oct 26, 2014
Oct 26, 2014 at 9:06 PM UTC
I wrapped my hands up in your hair
to feel the pulse - your heat, your beat.
I reach again
feel naught but air:
the essence of a love,
retreat.
Often do I venture back,
roam into an abandoned past.
Dis-embalm these memories true,
packed on ice
yet damp with dew.
Cat treads heavy the surface of heart,
imprints
indenting,
g, d
n e
i s
d c
n e
e n
c d
s i
a n
g,
scarring my thoughts, my rhythm,
my whole.
Shifting my sacrum,
sheathing my soul.
Doggedly I trail behind
with a twisted eraser
just "try the eraser"
you said with a smirk.
But still I reach and I reach and I reach
rapt in your attentions as a wave to a beach.
There is a grain of sand in my eye
that can't be washed away.
Salt, fresh, spring
they all caught her.
But I've tried every type of water.
Still you persist,
a rotting orange's mist.
I allowed you to come; I also let you leave.
I remember with crude clarity
what happened in between.
Go, my love you let.
Go, your love I let.
The only question now I have:
Why then can't I forget?
Oct 3, 2011
Oct 3, 2011 at 9:50 AM UTC
You just scattered the pieces.
How can you break what's already broken?
The comforting clench of the hand around the knife.
Those eyes.
The chill.
But those eyes, they make me believe.
In love.
In you.
I believe.
Yet I cry.
The stick of the point indenting my skin reflects the light of the situation.
Your eyes.
"I would never hurt you."
I hate you.
My eyes.
Filled with the tears from my non exsistant heart.
The heart that is yours.
The heart that is yours.
"I would never hurt you"
"You're the one thing I care about"
My eyes glisten as they stare into yours.
"I hate you"
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 7:43 PM UTC
I've been writing this novel
For a long time
As long
As I have
Been alive
Centered in lead
Scratching on paper
Cursively engaging
Building in plot
Filling in the margins
With side machinations
Occasionally
Pausing
Lingering on a particular line
While taking the care to design
A bookmark
(Bookmarks
Those crafty place keepers
Designed in paint and pen ink
Thicker than page
Indenting the chapter
Permanently altering
The binding)
Ornanate slips of cardstock
Decorated
In delicate flourish
Complex mandellas
Sacred geometric design
This novel I am writing
It's leafs dogtoothed
Still awaiting it's leather
Porcupined and thickened throughout
Promises
To be the intrigue of a lifetime
If only for the art itself
(JL)
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 11:32 PM UTC
I rolled over onto my back.
I reached up and wiped the sand beaches from the water line of my eyes.
My gaze fell to rest focusing on the corner of my ceiling where three planes came to an infinitesimal point.
The stale air reluctantly circled over and over through the whirling dervish blades of my floor fan.
I tossed to the left. My shoulder embossed with the intricate design of the thin sheets.
I ran my fingertips over every sullen divot in my flesh.
They felt like the imprints of dusty fingertips you left on my soul.
And though I knew better, I blamed you entirely for those wagon wheel ruts, muddy canyons I am still striving to cross over.
I realized it would only take two planes for us to meet.
The newborn air gladly pushing up the wings.
The plane indenting itself into the sky like a seal into melted wax, like the convex curve of a line.
But some lines are never supposed to truly meet.
Like the horizon.
The sky and the sea.
Running parallel.
Running indefinitely.
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 2:41 PM UTC
once more
to watch you sleep
eyelids fluttering
breaths deep and easy
this is the last time
you will lie in my bed
under my sheets
indenting my pillow
your flawless sunset hair
flowing like cascades
my fingertips tingle
above your angelic skin
this is the last time
with the sun
you will leave
and the moon
will not see your return
i will be alone soon
and you will be free
Dec 15, 2010
Dec 15, 2010 at 6:51 PM UTC
I lay on stained mattresses amidst oil paintings and mirrors
Lattice veils of mascara run down my pallor cheeks
As I stare down at the blood pooling in my outstretched hand
Reflections stare down at me, winged suicide girls and soldiers
All eyes across the room staring down with me, to the checkered floor
My pale pink toes brush the tile, the soles black smudging the gloss
White, blaring, chandeliers above, candelabras with jeweled adornments
Gracefully falling downwards like tears, my own indenting upon satin sheets
Wrapped tight around my legs, falling loose around my shoulders
Caping me, hanging open at my ******* bruised and swollen
Though I've no babe, and so, I clench my eyes against the staring
Chiding me, beguiling me, burned in behind my eyelids there,
you. are.
Whispering like chiffon, along with the fabric of my dress beneath your manicured fingernails
Tracing the edges of my gooseflesh and regaling me with tales of woe
and wonder, of the conquests of art, fine frames and fantastic auctions
Our freedom, held capricious on the winds of chance, before
Now love, our love, your love, provided such an opportunity, a chance to fly away
This you mumbled to my neck with adoring kisses
as relieving as fresh rain against my skin, hands tuning the zipper along my back to play such a fine melody like a phonograph
A pretty thing, to be molded by such hands, with as much regard as handling a Monet painting
I see it clearly after all
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 5:42 AM UTC
*Lock on the door. Lust and desire
fill their minds. “Kiss me poetry kiss
me on your porcelain floor kiss me
against the wall” she says. She begs
for more she begs to feel his fire all
over her skin and from within. Fingers
in the curls of his hair. Nails in his
skin, love fumes in the air. Her skin
slapped on his. Reaching down inside
her thighs to her knees he pauses as he
switches directions indenting his fingers
into her flesh. This couldn’t get any better
than this. But reality was harsh and cruel
for it was just a daydream she made up in
her head while sitting alone in her room.
But soon he’ll make her dreams come true
as he promised to kiss her in the light of the
day and the light of the moon* ~
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 12:52 PM UTC
Your teeth act like corrosive agents
for the insides of your cheeks, taking
one layer down with every second thought
and anxious regret, spilling blood
onto your tongue and carefully indenting
the flesh in your mouth to make it
look like a graph of your decisions,
but I'm here to tell you, that even if the blood
in your mouth were acid, it could
never melt your tongue.
Your thumbs rub against each other
in the same way the bones of
your wrist glide against the sound
of panic in your marrow,
friction between two identities with
the same print and subtle ridges,
sometimes holding on to one other only for a second,
but I'm here to tell you, that even if they chafe each other
every time you time you think, they will
find each other and acknowledge, accept, and stay.
Your nails are short and misshapen,
their length decreasing with every bead
of sweat on your brow when all they want you to do
is think, decide, act, and you know you cannot
as long as your teeth keep chewing
the skin off the tips of your fingers
and your heart beats slowly when
you panic and at the speed of light
when all you need is a slow rhythm in your chest,
but I'm here to tell you, that even if your nails
aren't long enough to scratch the angst
off your forehead, your heart, however
untimely it's speed is, will beat as long as you
keep the fight going,
it's beating, you're breathing, you're fighting.
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 11:33 AM UTC
for half an hour i kept scribbling
onto his feline forehead the sounds
i'd identify as alphabetical:
i scribbled into his cranium membrane
an omega, a beta, an alpha,
in english 26 complexities
to govern his meow - what a worthy curiosity
a cat is, readied for a sphinx -
indeed the petted animal overpowers
the intended artefact... in case of man
no more will remain than gerbils, cats, dogs,
and rabbits (inorganic, the inedible, petted,
worth a ceremonial burial),
and chickens, lambs, pigs and cows (organic,
the edible, anticipatory placebos of Holocousts) -
Kentucky would solely decipher us
having sustained ourselves on the deep fried cluck
struts... but there was me, indenting
sounds on a feline skull, writing the shape
β and uttering b'ah...
ω and uttering o'h - klepsydra enclosure -
the managed shard of alligator skin in canine
worth the bite muscular Pandora awaiting -
for half an hour i was writing such Braille onto his
cranium - but then humanity awoke with me in it,
and i learned that i was a very terrible person...
i was sitting next to Adolf when he laughed
about the good people entering heaven
stitched-up with fart-bombs talking, high on
methane rather than helium - well, it was all jokes
right up to the circumstance of burial, last rites,
and a thank you from grandma;
because i really gave a **** 20 years on.
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 10:43 PM UTC
The tide of time has lined your skin
with high laughter marks
indenting the parts
that were once washed smooth
by the Spring tide of youth
yet are now left unhindered
by the low tide of Winter;
So they lie 'round your eyes
sunbathing in the light
that years of experience bring.
Jul 7, 2017
Jul 7, 2017 at 1:47 PM UTC
He was an ancient warrior from times of old
back in the days when the sun was new
and the stars at night were brilliant blue
like the canopus star he once knew
Often, he was found rummaging the forest
looking for ther rarest mushrooms
as the eagles flew he counted tree rings
indenting the roots of ancestry wings
Then one day, he was reborn again
in an era of squabble filled with wars
silence became an oddity full of slew
and "The Sacred" a rarity hidden in full view
They tagged him with bipolar with doctorate degree
for this was a world of medicine and mental deficiency
yesterday he howled at the moon and cloaked the stars
today he is a sad man longing for a trip to Mars
He the ancient warrior of days of old
fights the good battle everyday, with tools of old
mistletoe on oak, he held his staff
all the time knowing his time would pass
Written by: Mystic Rose
For a friend who suffers from bipolar
Dec 17, 2023
Dec 17, 2023 at 7:26 AM UTC